Lawmakers
The Lawmakers (律者 Ritsusha), also known as the Collapse (崩壊 Hōkai), are the main antagonists of [[Cardfight!! Vanguard i|Cardfight!! Vanguard iZ]]. Led by Kallen and Gyze, they seek to destroy the world of [[Cray i|Cray i'']] as revenge for the injustices it has inflicted upon them. They plan on resurrecting the deceased body of from the main timeline using the s. Background The Lawmakers are an organization that formed decades ago, after Kallen had taken over Black Heaven and went on her travels across Cray. She discovered that the rest of Cray was no better than the Black Heaven that she survived through; they were selfish, apathetic, and cruel, and treated the weakest among them like dirt. Even people who were kind, selfless, and forgiving rang hollow for Kallen, as even those people still contributed to the corrupt status quo somehow. These experiences reinforced Kallen's hatred of Cray, and as a result, Kallen reached out to people from across Cray, those who had suffered as much as she had under the heel of their respective systems, and gave them the purpose to snuff out the world that had caused them so much pain. First, Kallen rescued Akrila from the Granblue pirates that had massacred her village; second, she and Akrila rescued Theastra from her torment from being used as a plaything by the faeries of the faerie world. The three of them bonded over their experiences, and they and Gyze began discussing their plan to destroy Cray. Gyze discussed with the Lawmakers the nature of the demiurge, the true creator of Cray and the one responsible for the evils of Cray. Cray was essentially made an awful place by design, and it would struggle with its own evil as long as it existed. According to Gyze, everyone that originated from Cray, as part of the demiurge's creation, would have to struggle with the evil that the demiurge placed in their hearts, even the Lawmakers and Gyze themselves, and Cray needed to be destroyed to put it out of its misery. (Mind you, the demiurge is not the sole source of evil on Cray. That would be naïve, as it would suggest that worlds other than Cray are free of conflict. Rather, the demiurge exacerbated and manipulated the evil that was already there, i.e. the hatred and conflict that was caused by the natural free will of sapient beings.) While everyone was in agreement with the destruction of Cray, there was much debate on how far they should take their plan. Should they destroy Cray and all of the people in it in its entirety, including the Lawmakers themselves, or should they leave a small number of people alive even with the demiurge's evil lurking in them? In the second scenario, with the majority of Earth and Cray destroyed, would the survivors even have a good quality of life? They could escape to another planet, but they would be hunted down by Interstellaris for genocide. After studying the events of the original timeline of Cray, including reading the future, Gyze came to a solution. Gyze had come to admire , a man who had also tried to take drastic action to create a paradise, even if he had to destroy Cray in the process. Gyze proposed that the Lawmakers utilize the , a device that could drain fortune from a world and transfer it to another world, leaving only misfortune. Instead of draining the fortune of Cray and transferring it to Earth, Gyze suggested, the Stride Gate could be used to drain fortune from the majority of Earth and Cray and concentrate it into wherever the Lawmakers chose, destroying most of both worlds while creating paradise for the survivors. The Lawmakers accepted the plan, which came to form around Gyze's proposal. Gyze would recruit , using Gyze's prodigious control over Cray's spacetime to summon Bind Time to the timeline of Cray ''i. They would work on activating and the Stride Gate, aiming to use the followers of the s rather than the twelve Zodiac Time Beasts themselves to activate Demiurge. And when Gyze's original body in the main timeline would inevitably be destroyed in combat with , they would retrieve Gyze's body, have Kallen install herself onto the body as a vessel, and use it as a superweapon to end the world, after which Demiurge would convert the destroyed world into fortune for the Lawmakers' paradise. In the decades that followed, the Lawmakers worked in the background so that their plan would come to fruition, undermining the six nations of Cray so that when the Lawmakers' plans went public, they would be too weak and divided to stop them. The invasion of Deep Thought was initially believed to be a boon, but the rebellions that followed surprised the Lawmakers, as they demonstrated that people could compete against the status quo that oppressed the Lawmakers without being stamped out. When the Lawmakers retrieved Gyze's body, they soon learned that Hazur, the creator of Cray i, had recently awakened, and that Kairos, Hazur's powerful accomplice, had rescued Chronojet and would soon make Hazur aware of the Lawmakers' plans. With Kairos on their tail, the Lawmakers prematurely began their assault on Cray, striking against all six nations at once. Members Cray Earth Trivia *Consult this Twitter thread for a better understanding of the mentality of the Lawmakers. Category:Fan Fiction Element